Tomiki Kenji - interesting links.

Tomiki Kenji was an open-hearted man, very undogmatic. He was a friend of Kobayashi Hirokazu, and ensured that his high level student, Nariyama Tetsuro, studied with Kobayashi for a number of years. He also established some links, post-Ueshiba, with Daito-ryu.

1. The koryu no kata, developed with Ohba Hideo, is said to be an artifact of the 1930's aikido of Ueshiba, linked, therefore with the soden waza of the Takumakai, the Daito-ryu of Ueshiba of the Noma dojo photos, etc.
2. Note this commentary on aiki-age and Tomiki aikido - Tomiki made some kind of association with Maeda Takeshi, a student of the Daito-ryu teacher, Matsuda Toshimi (beware - when I did a websearch, one of the top listing - the Dragon's Orb - came up as loaded with malware). What I find really fascinating in the pdf linked here is the following:

We are using alot of tegatana no kuzushi (4-hon no kuzushi, 7-hon no kuzushi, …..). We can see in these exercises the influence of aiki age and aiki sage. We always say these are kuzushi methods - breaking balance. Maybe we can give another way of thinking to these methods : how to control the opponent' s power and use it.

HIPS again.
Ellis Amdur

I could find only one online video of Tomiki (and Ohba), but saw no evidence of aiki-age or aiki-sage (the characteristic reaction of uke's body from that kuzushi would be evident) in anything he is demonstrating there -- waza start about 6 minutes in. Is it possible that his contact with Daito-ryu, and thus the commentary you cite, came after this film was made?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPhG6XA2fL8

Ellis,

The original article regarding Matsuda, Maeda, Okuyama, Tomiki etc. was a two-part entry in a weblog at http://budoshugyosha.over-blog.com which is unfortunately offline at this time.

My personal interest that led me to finding this site a few years ago was because we have little info about Matsuda, who is said to have introduced and taught Daitoryu to Okuyama.

Edit: The new version of the French weblog has preserved the article: http://www.budoshugyosha.com/matsuda-toshimi/

Devon

Very interesting link.

Elllis, you should purchase this book written by Fumiaki Shishida and Tetsuro Nariyama of Tomiki-ryu, although it is in Japanese. Just looking at the pictures is very indicative.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%90%88%E6.../dp/4469162884
It was originally published in 1985 and it is still sold. Its the first textbook of Aikido which detailed the relation ship with Daito-ryu and in fact 20 % of the book is dedicated to introduce Takumakai both in text and in pictures.

Moreover what is interesting is that all those kuzushi with tegatana which are mentioned in the link you have provided,are introduced in sequence photographs. And also about "Kokyu-ho" (Aiki age in Daito-ryu). Personally what was the most interesting for me that there is a introduction about "the strange and mysterious power in Aikido which is sometimes referred as Kokyu-ryoku" explaining that this is actually a kind of unified strength of the whole body and introduced the training method for it.

In the book it is introduced as "Touitsuryoku kunren ho (Training method to enhance the unified power)" and it is identical with Yoshinkan's "Hiriki no Yosei 2" and Saito Morihiro's "Morotedori Kokyuho"

Cady - IHTBF One has Sagawa assert that Saigo Chikanori can't have had aiki, because of a single photograph. And we see in the Horikawa thread, Okamoto bewildered where Shioda could have learned aiki, 'cause he couldn't have gotten it from Ueshiba, based on the films. My recent little project is based on the idea that Ueshiba, like Takeda before him, may have taught each person very differently. Now, as to Tomiki - and Ohba. We have an account of Tomiki showing pretty high level aiki skills to the Kodokan gaikoku kenshusei back in the early fifties (account of Hal Sharp, now 8th dan in Kodokan judo). We have Ohba describing him telling Tomiki about a DR demo, where someone (Tokimune) is pinned down and he sends them flying, and Tomiki says that he could do that, and shows him right there. We also have Ueshiba making him his first 8th dan, and the fact that he trained with Yukawa, Shirata, Shioda, etc.
BUT we have Tomiki believing maybe stronger than Kano Jigoro, that what is taught in budo must serve modern society and he was very reticent, therefore, about aiki. Just as Kano deliberately turned ki-development training from Tenjin Shinyo-ryu into cryptic movements that resembled zeppelins or simply calisthenics, Tomiki deliberately did this with his aikido, from what I understand from what I've read.
And I very definitely was not suggesting that Tomiki sensei went to this Daito-ryu teacher and got "revamped" (a new version of the Horikawa-Shioda myth). I am noting, only, that such a meeting took place, and, I assume, Tomiki found something of interest in what Maeda was doing, just as he did with Kobayashi Hirokazu.
I'm not faulting you for citing the film, or noting what you see or don't see. But I really think that too much is made from what people claim to see in films. (For example, I get what Horikawa is doing - but I also see such a blatant level of tanking and "aiki accomodation syndrome" that I've no way of gauging from that film if his skill was significant or merely gestures. I know - others disagree - that's the point of IHTBF).
What I found far more of interest was the quote in the essay - the writer realizing the possiblity that maybe they were being taught something different from what they thought they were being taught.
Best
Ellis

My first intro to Aikido was though the Tomiki style and I have to say - the shichi-hon-no-kuzushi are really good. It is not that they are good unto themselves, rather, they present the inquisitive mind with endless ideas. Also, the katas. Rather than being endless lists of techniques it is better to think of them as ideas. Each waza contains a particular idea, and each kata also has a particular focus. Personally, I think they are a very valuable resource. But the purpose of learning them seems lost - today people just reel them off for gradings, and to me, that is a mistaken approach. You have to examine the waza individually - the kata are a clever library of ideas. The only purpose of kata for me is that it is an aid to memory. I think Tomiki was a very smart guy!

Ellis,
I'm definitely not disputing that Tomiki had aiki -- it's quite evident now that many of Ueshiba's pre-war students came away with some kind of aiki kit... though in varying degrees, just as there is a strong argument now in favor of the probability that Takeda's students got different recipes, based on their size and capabilities, amount of hands-on training time with Takeda, and other factors.

However, for whatever purpose this training film was composed, to my eyes it does not explicitly demonstrate an internal component. Perhaps intentionally so, and that did occur to me. Watching some clips of Karl Geis, aiki is there and it didn't just materialize from out of a vacuum. Aiki-sage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQvvZfnbUOk

You are, of course, quite right that it often is difficult to discern what, exactly, is being done in some of these old films, thanks to the amazing tank-fests that take place in so many of them. If the only gauge we had of Ueshiba's skills were those snippets with uke throwing themselves willy-nilly before Ueshiba could lay hands on them, we'd be left with the sour taste of fraud in our mouths. (Even in these clips, some of the ukes' body responses look genuine, while others are clearly due to anticipation and deference...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDK3XuvZWw

We know that this does not mean that the demonstrator is not using legitimate internal skills, but uke is not helping to provide an accurate demonstration of them. Actually, the Horikawa aiki-no-jutsu video has a lot less tanking than most aiki clips I've seen. The one-on-one aiki is what (to me) looks bona fide, especially the parts where a student is trying to learn by hands-on and is not always successful, or is just starting to get a sense of what to do.
There likely is some tanking in the group love-knot pretzel demos (though I've felt some of those, and they definitely can temporarily "freeze" your joints in a lock-block kind of way), but what's more important to me, is that in the various one-on-one expressions of aiki, uke's body reflects what nage is manipulating inside himself, and, again, the cues are there that someone who has BTDT could possibly recognize.

One such cue is the almost instantaneous collapse of a person's structure on contact as it is deconstructed by internally driven kuzushi, such as what you see in those videos I posted elsewhere of an aikijujutsu lesson/demo. You can see the effects, but no signs of uke "doing" anything. When someone is faking it, usually there is over-use of "external" muscle groups to effect a facsimile of collapse. It is less spontaneous and more labored than natural "aiki deconstruction." Also, if you slow down the video or just watch closely, you sometimes can see a whit of space between nage and uke just before contact, and uke is already moving down, or up, or away, or some combination of that. Here is an overt example of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKtK-ifyas

Anyway, while we're on the subject of who got what aiki, from whom and where... has anyone ever really looked at Morihei Ueshiba's little hop, Shioda's medium-sized hop (and tiptoe routine), and Tohei's big hop?
Interesting to note, that part of internal training also involves footwork and the use of opposing forces to rocket the body across the ground rather than using conventional stepping mechanics. It increases force/power and minimizes the amount of time in which weight is shifted (so the center of mass is not compromised for more than a brief moment in mobility). Not saying that this is what's going on in these men's movements (I'm still watching clips repeatedly), but I do wonder whether Shioda's and Tohei's hops are a chip off the old block to some degree, adopting a movement from their teacher whether or not it has a pragmatic function.

Cady Goldfield wrote: I could find only one online video of Tomiki (and Ohba)

Google "Kenji Tomiki: Aikido Kyogi"

Hi,
you will find a lot of "Tomiki Aikido" clips : http://www.youtube.com/user/ewolput/videos
The initial document was made as a trigger in a discussion about aiki-age and aiki-sage and the relation with 7-hon no kuzushi (omote waza and ura waza), a training tool in Tomiki's aikido. There are a lot of 7-hon no kuzushi versions.

Takeshi Inoue, a Tomiki Aikido instructor, wrote :
In about 1958, we practiced mainly the unsoku, tandoku undo, yonhon no kuzushi (the original version of the present nanahon no kuzushi) as well as the jugohon no kata (fifteen technique kata). In around 1960, the junanahon no kata (17 technique basic kata) and the roppon no kuzushi were created and then the dai-san no kata was devised as a kata of classical techniques. During the mid-60 Ohba Sensei and others worked on the creation of the kata forms of the dai-ichi (first) to dai-roku (sixth), which we presently practice as the koryu no kata, in order to work on techniques for demonstrations

Another source which can be interesting : Teruo Fujiwara
Around 1950-1952, Kenji Tomiki developped a trainingsystem for the many aiki-jutsu techniques, it was called judo taiso or judo gymnastics. This trainingsystem was created according the judo principles. (Judo Taiso 1954 by Kenji Tomiki)
This Judo Taiso system includes
11 solo exercises (Tandoku Undo) - 8 partner exercises (Sotai Undo)
The Tandoku Undo are exercises to develop good posture and balance. The judo principle shizentai-no--ri is clearly expressed in these excercises. In these exercises the use of the handblade is a reflection of the many aiki-jutsu atemiwaza and kansetsuwaza. We cannot deny the influence of swordmanship in the use of the handblade (tegatana).
The Sotai Undo are exercises which uses the kuzushi-no-ri principle of judo (breaking balance principle). In these exercises the use of good posture, proper balance, correct movement and use of the handblade are further explored. Basically we can say the sotai undo are breaking balance excercises by using the handblade.
(Judo reference material by Teruo Fujiwara - 2005 - former student of Kenji Tomiki)

Basically the words aiki-age and aiki-sage were (almost?) never used until recently when the information on the Daito-Ryu lineages were more accessible for general public.

On Facebook there is "Study Group Tomiki Aikido" since a few years active. From time to time some interesting items are posted. But as most public forum, there are a lot of (semi)-political items discussed.

Eddy

Thanks for the suggestion, Demetrio, and the link, Eddy. I've been finding that for some reason, Google gives me very limited options sometimes, as though it's selectively filtering things based on whatever marketing tidbits it as gleaned from my activities. Yesterday, the one clip of basics by Tomiki, with Ohba, was the only video of Tomiki that came up.

Cady Goldfield wrote: Thanks for the suggestion, Demetrio, and the link, Eddy. I've been finding that for some reason, Google gives me very limited options sometimes, as though it's selectively filtering things based on whatever marketing tidbits it as gleaned from my activities. Yesterday, the one clip of basics by Tomiki, with Ohba, was the only video of Tomiki that came up.

I need to log out of my google email account in order to do "fresh" google searches and avoid their computers sending me the links they think "I" want.

Janet Rosen wrote: I need to log out of my google email account in order to do "fresh" google searches and avoid their computers sending me the links they think "I" want.

Try http://duckduckgo.com . Info on the problem you're discussing found here: http://donttrack.us/

Cady Goldfield wrote: Ellis, I'm definitely not disputing that Tomiki had aiki -- it's quite evident now that many of Ueshiba's pre-war students came away with some kind of aiki kit... though in varying degrees, just as there is a strong argument now in favor of the probability that Takeda's students got different recipes, based on their size and capabilities, amount of hands-on training time with Takeda, and other factors. However, for whatever purpose this training film was composed, to my eyes it does not explicitly demonstrate an internal component. Perhaps intentionally so, and that did occur to me. Watching some clips of Karl Geis, aiki is there and it didn't just materialize from out of a vacuum. Aiki-sage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQvvZfnbUOk You are, of course, quite right that it often is difficult to discern what, exactly, is being done in some of these old films, thanks to the amazing tank-fests that take place in so many of them. If the only gauge we had of Ueshiba's skills were those snippets with uke throwing themselves willy-nilly before Ueshiba could lay hands on them, we'd be left with the sour taste of fraud in our mouths. (Even in these clips, some of the ukes' body responses look genuine, while others are clearly due to anticipation and deference...) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDK3XuvZWw We know that this does not mean that the demonstrator is not using legitimate internal skills, but uke is not helping to provide an accurate demonstration of them. Actually, the Horikawa aiki-no-jutsu video has a lot less tanking than most aiki clips I've seen. The one-on-one aiki is what (to me) looks bona fide, especially the parts where a student is trying to learn by hands-on and is not always successful, or is just starting to get a sense of what to do. There likely is some tanking in the group love-knot pretzel demos (though I've felt some of those, and they definitely can temporarily "freeze" your joints in a lock-block kind of way), but what's more important to me, is that in the various one-on-one expressions of aiki, uke's body reflects what nage is manipulating inside himself, and, again, the cues are there that someone who has BTDT could possibly recognize. One such cue is the almost instantaneous collapse of a person's structure on contact as it is deconstructed by internally driven kuzushi, such as what you see in those videos I posted elsewhere of an aikijujutsu lesson/demo. You can see the effects, but no signs of uke "doing" anything. When someone is faking it, usually there is over-use of "external" muscle groups to effect a facsimile of collapse. It is less spontaneous and more labored than natural "aiki deconstruction." Also, if you slow down the video or just watch closely, you sometimes can see a whit of space between nage and uke just before contact, and uke is already moving down, or up, or away, or some combination of that. Here is an overt example of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKtK-ifyas Anyway, while we're on the subject of who got what aiki, from whom and where... has anyone ever really looked at Morihei Ueshiba's little hop, Shioda's medium-sized hop (and tiptoe routine), and Tohei's big hop? Interesting to note, that part of internal training also involves footwork and the use of opposing forces to rocket the body across the ground rather than using conventional stepping mechanics. It increases force/power and minimizes the amount of time in which weight is shifted (so the center of mass is not compromised for more than a brief moment in mobility). Not saying that this is what's going on in these men's movements (I'm still watching clips repeatedly), but I do wonder whether Shioda's and Tohei's hops are a chip off the old block to some degree, adopting a movement from their teacher whether or not it has a pragmatic function.

Cady,
Again, I couldn't have said it better.

And I'd like to add that, if we have access to old reels of those old films and can look at them with e.g. a repair kit where you can look at every picture without the risk of burning the film, we sometimes can detect snippets of scenes where something obviously has gone wrong or not as wished for and that are either edited out or somehow have got lost in the now available versions on DVD.

Combined with “naïve realism" on the part of an observer - the belief that the world is exactly as we see it - as exemplified by the belief that eyewitness observation is always correct and in the often-heard (and often exactly wrong) phrases “seeing is believing” and “I know what I saw” , through this loss, either by accident or on purpose, a more or less false idealistic image of our arts for too many of us may already have been created. As a consequence of this, some of the current beliefs correlate with reality , and some do not.

Just because we see something on film, like when someone, may be even a widely acknowledged expert, calls something truth, doesn't make it so per se, and therefore sometimes better not sacrifice clear thinking on the altar of false politeness and better raise the "unwanted question".

Best,
Bernd

Tomoo Yawata wrote: Very interesting link. Elllis, you should purchase this book written by Fumiaki Shishida and Tetsuro Nariyama of Tomiki-ryu, although it is in Japanese. Just looking at the pictures is very indicative.

This book has been translated into English, but I do not know if it is still available.

'Aikido, Tradition and the Competitive Edge' by Shodokan Publishing, USA, 1318 4th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710 and the ISBN 0-964-7083-2-9

The funny thing about the book is that at the end is written: 7.4 Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu Techniques with the following text: The six techniques illustrated on the pages following are included in the English edition without remarks. So, just look at the pictures.

Speaking about pictures. What always strikes me about Tomiki is that there are pictures of him where his Uke is on tip-toes, unless Tomiki had Uke's (Ohba) who liked to walk on the tips of their toes.

And the second thing about him is his tegatana, you are admonished not to grip when doing the 7-hon-kuzushi (there's also a 4 and an 8-hon kuzushi). But I suppose Tomiki had a special kind of glue available, just like Uke's who liked to walk on their toes.

http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=109

This is a really good interview - in that it discusses all the different connections between people.

I always laughed at the us vs them statements both from Shodokan people and Aikikai. Every Aikido competition I attended in Kansai had a table full of Aikikai shihan as guests.